Here’s a measure of how the Government of Puerto Rico values the lives of its citizens. When Gov. Ricardo Rosello first told the visiting President Trump the Hurricane Maria death toll of was just 16, literally everyone knew that was wrong. Today the official number is still under 70. But Julio Ricardo Varela of Futuro Media and Latino USA showed the real number is closer to 1000. When it comes to government estimates of the value of property damage done by the storm, they seem almost as high as their death count is low.

Good news for the oil, gas and coal industries, but the Trump tariffs announced on solar energy materials seem pretty bad for everyone else…unless the foreign-owned companies getting protection expand operations in the US, and more important, innovate here, so that the US isn’t just a backwater in the energy streams of the 21st century. Keith Johnson of Foreign Policy on this and other big doings in global energy markets. Are today’s higher oil prices a peak, just a dot on an upward slope, or the new normal?

THERE: There it was on the internet. Amazon was even offering it for sale. A tee-shirt inscribed “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.” What a cute idea…let’s lynch reporters, columnists or editors we disagree with! Dan Shelley, the Executive Director of the Radio Television Digital News Association wasn’t amused. So he went right to the sources, including Amazon and asked, is this an idea you endorse? The shirts were pulled from the digital shelves, but Dan warns, right-wing agitation against a free press isn’t over.

The Donald Trump-GOP Congress tax bill is now law…and it is clear it’s a bonanza for America’s largest corporations and richest people. But what about the rest of us? Jordan Goodman, America’s Money Answers Man, has the answers on new taxes…who will benefit from the new law? How soon will the benefits begin and how long will they last? And who are the – Donald Trump’s favorite word – “losers” in the new tax configuration, and what are the consequences for them and for the nation as a whole?

In Vietnamese, the phrase, “may you live in interesting times,” is considered a curse. Women in Pakistan, and much of the Islamic world know why. The times they are living through are more than just interesting. Rafia Zakaria has written two recent books, The Upstairs Wife and Veil that reveal the changes in national politics and religious practices that challenge women from Karachi to Timbuktoo. Their status as citizens, as wives, as women is changing…but what will come next is still a mystery.

Glenn Simpson was an ace investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, until he took his skills private and formed the research firm Fusion GPS. Simpson calls what his company does – things like compiling the so-called dossier of alleged connections between associates of Donald Trump and associates of Vladimir Putin – “journalism for rent.” It’s a label investigative reporter Jack Gillum of the Washington Post finds troubling. Fusion GPS uses the means of journalism, but often to ends that look like journalism minus a lot of professional standards.

Anne Frank kept a secret diary while hiding out from the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. She was betrayed, captured and killed by the Nazis but her diary became world famous. During the Islamic State occupation of Mosul, a young girl Anne Frank’s age also kept a secret diary, but published it on Facebook. Reporter Bram Janssen of the Associated Press found “Ferah” and tell us her story which ends with her and her family surviving occupation and outlasting the jihadi terrorists.

For many years at the Rocky Mountain News, M. E. Sprengelmeyer had what a lot of people consider a dream job, ace reporter for a major regional newspaper. M. E. covered war in Iraq and Afghanistan and politics in Washington and on the campaign trail. Then the Rocky closed and M E found HIS dream job. For 8 years he ran the small town weekly, The Guadalupe County Communicator in Santa Rosa, NM. He shares that experience with us, what he learned about reporting and small town life and why he’s decided to quit ‘em both.